Mission and Demographics

The mission of the Center for Surgical Research is to foster research and instruction in the areas of trauma, hemorrhage, sepsis, burn injury, and surgical critical care and to translate these experimental studies to the bedside using novel treatment modalities so that complications and mortality rates in such trauma patients can be decreased. The Center currently has 23 appointed faculty members representing 12 departments and divisions at UAB.

General Research Interests

The Center for Surgical Research has the expertise, resources, facilities, and environment to conduct research in both the basic and the clinical sciences of trauma.

Research at the Center is multidisciplinary and includes investigators with specialties in surgery, medicine, physiology, pathology, biochemistry, immunology, microbiology, and molecular biology. Only by interaction of these diverse areas of expertise is it possible to accomplish the goals of obtaining new and pertinent information for better care and management of the traumatized host. Significant emphasis is placed on generating state-of-the-art information that is available to trauma and burn surgeons in the UAB community. Investigators in Anesthesiology, Cardiovascular-Thoracic Surgery, General Surgery, Injury Sciences, Medicine, Microbiology, Neurosurgery, Orthopedic Surgery, Pathology, Pediatric Surgery, Plastic Surgery, Transplantation, Trauma, Burns, and Critical Care are a part of the Center for Surgical Research. The combined team effort and integrative approach contribute to improved procedures for diagnosis, treatment, and critical care that will result in decreased trauma-induced septic complications, morbidities, and mortality rates.

Although the research interests in the Center are multifaceted, a particular area of emphasis is the gender dimorphism in cardiovascular and immunological responses following tissue trauma, hemorrhage, and thermal injury. There is also emphasis on the use of sex steroids/receptor agonists/antagonists following trauma to restore depressed cardiac and myocardial responses.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is the major source of funding support for research at the Center. Dr. Chaudry, Director of the Center, has over 500-peer reviewed publications to his credit and is also a recipient of the MERIT Award from the NIH-National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS).

The Center for Surgical Research has also received a grant from DARPA, the Department of Defense agency renowned for funding high risk, high impact research. This particular grant will investigate means to extend the life of wounded soldiers who have sustained massive blood loss. A matrix of compounds will be examined in an animal model of “permissive hypotension.” The goal is to extend a wounded soldier’s survival after sustaining massive hemorrhage and shock (still the major cause of battlefield death) by several hours, sufficient to evacuate the soldier to a field hospital for treatment.

Another newly funded grant from the US Army MRAA will explore the use of 17-estradiol with and without other compounds in traumatic brain injury with an eye toward application in the civilian population as well as on the battlefield.

Training

The Center is committed to the training of residents and fellows. Investigators at the Center have trained and are training several residents/fellows. Many past trainees are now independent investigators conducting research in the field of trauma both in the US and abroad. Dr. Chaudry is also the Program Director of a T32 training grant from the NIH/NIGMS, which enables the Center to offer a two-year Post-Doctoral Fellowship program for “Trauma and Inflammation Research Training.”

Additional Information

The Center for Surgical research houses the office of the Editor-in-Chief and several editorial board members of the international journal, SHOCK.

For additional information:

Director: Irshad H. Chaudry, PhD

Email: Irshad.Chaudry@ccc.uab.edu

Phone: 205-975-2195

Administrator: Connie Weldon

Email: CSR@ccc.uab.edu

Phone: 205-975-9710

Approved by: Irshad H. Chaudry, PhD, Director

Date: April 11, 2008

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